The Strenuous Life: The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, Volume 12 (of 14)Roosevelt, Theodore
General
The Strenuous Life: The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, Volume 12 (of 14)
Roosevelt, Theodore
United States -- Colonial question; United States -- Politics and government
Let me insist again, for fear of possible misconstruction, upon the
fact that our duty is twofold, and that we must raise others while
we are benefiting ourselves. In bringing order to the Philippines,
our soldiers added a new page to the honor-roll of American history,
and they incalculably benefited the islanders themselves. Under the
wise administration of Governor Taft the islands now enjoy a peace
and liberty of which they have hitherto never even dreamed. But this
peace and liberty under the law must be supplemented by material, by
industrial development. Every encouragement should be given to their
commercial development, to the introduction of American industries and
products; not merely because this will be a good thing for our people,
but infinitely more because it will be of incalculable benefit to the
people in the Philippines.
We shall make mistakes; and if we let these mistakes frighten us
from our work we shall show ourselves weaklings. Half a century
ago Minnesota and the two Dakotas were Indian hunting-grounds. We
committed plenty of blunders, and now and then worse than blunders, in
our dealings with the Indians. But who does not admit at the present
day that we were right in wresting from barbarism and adding to
civilization the territory out of which we have made these beautiful
States? And now we are civilizing the Indian and putting him on a level
to which he could never have attained under the old conditions.
In the Philippines let us remember that the spirit and not the
mere form of government is the essential matter. The Tagalogs have
a hundredfold the freedom under us that they would have if we had
abandoned the islands. We are not trying to subjugate a people; we
are trying to develop them and make them a law-abiding, industrious,
and educated people, and we hope ultimately a self-governing people.
In short, in the work we have done we are but carrying out the true
principles of our democracy. We work in a spirit of self-respect for
ourselves and of good-will toward others, in a spirit of love for and
of infinite faith in mankind. We do not blindly refuse to face the
evils that exist, or the shortcomings inherent in humanity; but across
blundering and shirking, across selfishness and meanness of motive,
across short-sightedness and cowardice, we gaze steadfastly toward the
far horizon of golden triumph. If you will study our past history as
a nation you will see we have made many blunders and have been guilty
of many shortcomings, and yet that we have always in the end come
out victorious because we have refused to be daunted by blunders and
defeats, have recognized them, but have persevered in spite of them.
So it must be in the future. We gird up our loins as a nation, with
the stern purpose to play our part manfully in winning the ultimate
triumph; and therefore we turn scornfully aside from the paths of mere
ease and idleness, and with unfaltering steps tread the rough road of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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